Friday, September 16, 2016

Renaissance Newsletter #14

Georgia
Renaissance Festival

For
those intrepid souls that make the trek to tiny Fairburn each spring to enjoy
the myriad sights and sounds of the annual Georgia Renaissance Festival, the
journey is made with excitement and wonder as they are transported to a magical
world where fairies dance to the lilting sounds of minstrel music, kings and
queens lord over the realm, and great warriors and champions battle to the
death for honor and glory.

For
roughly three months of each of the past 31 years, the sleepy Southern town
just south of the hustle and bustle of Atlanta has come alive as an average of
200,000 visitors arrive on the 32-acre Renaissance theme park to experience
what life might have been like in a bygone era.

With
a combination of outdoor theater, circus-style entertainment and a wide variety
of activities for all ages, including rides for the children, more than 300
street performers and costumed characters, and 10 stages featuring more than
150 daily performances, the festival has something for everyone.

Although
the festival is rooted in the prevailing culture of 16th century Europe, the
festival also embraces a bit of the fantastical as visitors will no doubt
encounter gargoyles, fairies, satyrs, wizards and even a cartoon character or
two, frolicking with pirates, knights, peasants, vikings, lords and ladies….

Indeed,
fairies are a common sight throughout the Renaissance Festival as they can be
seen roaming the grounds and dancing with adults and children alike to the
sounds of minstrel music, or manning the various clothing stores and booths
that sell things like elf ears, necklaces, and garlands.

In
fact, many of the fairies, as well as a great many of the knights, wizards,
pirates, warriors and other medieval and fantastical characters one encounters
throughout the 32-acre grounds, are not even festival employees, but rather
festival-goers who purchased various garments and other accoutrements from the
150-plus vendors and artisans in the village marketplace and dressed up in costume…

Charlene
and Daniel Singletary have been Renaissance Festival enthusiasts since before
they met.

“We
met through mutual friends who were also involved in the Renaissance Festival,”
Charlene said. “I threw a party in 2011 and he came with some friends. At the
time, we were both dating other people, but he was really nice and we all had a
good time hanging out and playing games.”

A
few years later, Daniel reconnected with Charlene and the two started dating…

Charlene
and Daniel have been involved in the Renaissance Festival in many facets. Both
of them have worked there, sold wares and have many friends in their ‘clan’ or
group of people they associate and camp with at the festival.

For
two months out of the year, the couple joins their clan in costume and
character. They enjoy the experience of interacting with guests.

“We
get into the theatrics of it,” Charlene said. “The atmosphere is extraordinary.
It’s romantic, enchanting and almost like stepping back in time…”

“A
Renaissance Festival wedding was always at the forefront of our mind,” Charlene
said. “That festival is what we love to do with our time out…”

Charlene
and Daniel were given an opportunity to make their dream a reality as one of
four couples competing in the 2016 Renaissance Run at the Texas Renaissance
Festival Saturday, May 21.

The
festivities begin at 10 a.m. in Shannon Springs Park on Saturday, May 21.

…A
variety of vendors sold jewelry, wooden crafts as well as blacksmiths and
silversmiths. Attendees can feast on turkey legs, Scottish eggs and enjoy some
brew.

There
was entertainment for all ages, including a climbing wall and a castle bounce
house for the kids. There was also be a beer garden in a designated area for
adults, Kim Kohler, Celtic Renaissance Faire coordinator said. A sheep herding
featured a professional sheep herder, border collies and–of course–a live herd
of sheep.

The
event's highlight was a performance of Shakespeare's "Taming of the
Shrew" at the park's amphitheater at 2 p.m. The outdoor stage took play
attendees back in time, as Shakespearean plays were actually performed outdoors
in a similar setting, Katie Davis, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at the
University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, said.

Chef Jason Fox will soon
travel back in time to cook a medieval-inspired pop-up dinner

This
July, the chef has signed on to cook a medieval-inspired pop-up dinner
benefiting Cut Circle — a late-medieval and Renaissance vocal ensemble directed
by Jesse Rodin, an associate professor of 15th century food and music at
Stanford, that brings early music education to under served Bay Area
communities.

The
evening’s elaborate four-course meal will be inspired by recipes from the 14th
and 15th centuries, including dishes like capons in aspic, roast quails in
broom flower sauce, roast suckling pig and haddock in brown ale sauce. Mead and
gruit — an early forerunner to hopped beers, brewed by one of Rodin’s students
— will accompany the meal.

Society for
Creative Anachronism

By
day, Norm Read of Kingston is an accountant, but in his spare time, he wears
armor and becomes Aleid van Groningen, a 12th century knight…. He is one of
about 50 members of the Barony of Carraig Ban, the local chapter of the Society
for Creative Anachronism (SCA).

The
SCA is an international organization with more than 30,000 members dedicated to
researching and recreating the arts and skills of pre-17th century Europe.
Members dressed in Middle Ages and Renaissance clothing attend and host events
featuring armored combat tournaments, royal courts, feasts, dancing and
workshops.

A
recentSCA event, the Tournament of
Flowers, included heavy weapon and rapier challenge tournaments, a
blacksmithing demonstration, medieval baseball, dancing and calligraphy
classes. A tavern-style feast was served at 5:30 p.m. andcost $6 a person…

“You
never know what you’ll see at an event,” said Rachel Scheffler of Malta, who
also is known as 14th century Baroness Epona Brodin. “Some have archery,
falconry, hounding and equestrian events. There are also lessons on milking goats.
At one event in Wisconsin, I learned how to sheer a sheep and process wool.”

May 1, 2016 marked the 50th anniversary, of the founding
of the Society for Creative Anachronism in Berkeley. The SCA was started by a
group of young people--including some graduate students at Cal--as a whimsical
way to celebrate, commemorate, and recall the Middle Ages through historically
authentic events, traditions and culture.

Their first event was May Day, May 1, 1966, at an improvised
tournament gathering in the backyard of the home at the time of Diana Paxton
(now a well known fantasy author). The house is still there on Oregon Street
near Le Conte School. The current owner told me once that she is periodically
bemused by SCA fans coming by to ask for a pinch of dirt from the yard, like
collecting a holy relic.

The
Barony of Carraig Ban was founded in 1974 at Northern Illinois University. Nora
London of Sugar Grove, known as 14th century Dame Nicholaa Halden, was a founding
member.

“I
love that there’s always something new to learn,” London said. “Some say that
we teach post-apocalyptic skills, the base skills needed for a zombie
apocalypse. Over the years, I learned how to cook over a fire and I’ve done
costuming and embroidery. Everything is hands-on. You learn as you’re doing.”

Everyone
in the SCA is nobility, unless they choose to be a peasant. The SCA has an
elaborate award system, with titles and ranks earned and bestowed upon members.

SCA
members get to choose their persona’s name and history. Characters are picked
from pre-17th century Europe and include people Europeans might have come in
contact with, including people from Asia and the Middle East. Since the SCA is
historically based, members wear period clothing to match their persona….

Botticelli’s
fame delayed more than three centuries

…Only
shreds of evidence survive to suggest what Botticelli himself was like. From
old studio anecdotes, there emerges the impression of a man who had a
characteristically Florentine taste for boisterous practical jokes and sharp
back talk. Despite his reputation, then and later, as a painter of naked women,
Botticelli was not in person a ladies’ man. The real Botticelli seems to have
been a hardworking, disputatious leg-puller with a preference, in common with
many of his contemporaries, for same-sex relationships…

One
of the odd aspects of Botticelli’s fame is that it was so delayed. Quite a few
artists have become stars only posthumously, Vermeer and Van Gogh being two
other examples, but in Botticelli’s case the gap was unusually long: more than
three centuries. During his lifetime, Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi
(circa 1445– 1510), to give him his proper name, was a well-respected member of
the Florentine art community. (Botticelli, “little barrel,” was a nickname that
was first applied to his elder brother, a banker who was presumably either
rotund or heavy-drinking, although historians are unable to distinguish which.)

In an assessment of the painters working in Florence written for the Duke of
Milan around 1490, Botticelli came out well, his works described as “excellent”
and, puzzlingly to those who associate him with dreamy, sad-eyed Madonnas and
Venus on her shell, having a “virile air.” But the duke’s agent did not
necessarily put Botticelli above the others on the list, which included
Ghirlandaio and Perugino. Nor did anyone else for several hundred years.

In
the early 19th century, The Birth of
Venus and La Primavera were
discovered at the villa of Castello outside Florence, where they had been for
centuries. They were put on display at the Uffizi and slowly attracted
attention….

Concert explores
commercialism in music in Middle Ages and Renaissance

Entertaining
the gentry. Whether having to satisfy the nobility or the capitalist market,
composers have usually been at the mercy of those with money.

Musica
Antigua, New Mexico’s early music ensemble, explored this relationship in a
selection of medieval and Renaissance works that have amusing stories
surrounding them in a concert entitled “The Royal Treatment – Musicians and
Their Employers in the Middle Ages & Renaissance.”

No
one was more outspoken in his music than the wandering German poet known as Der
Unverzagte (The Courageous One), a minnesänger (troubadour) of the 13th century
and the author of a number of songs that castigate the ungenerosity of patrons.
His most famous work, the satirical “Der kuninc Rodolp” (King Rudolph), takes
on even the king for his miserly habits, then extends his outrage to the
nobility who are “alien to the arts.”

From
Philippe de Vitry, a 13th century musical innovator, comes a no-holds-barred
Latin-language portrait of one Master Hugues, calling him “Master of malignity”
and concluding, “I can more truly say to you: You are the hypocrite.” He
compares him to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, which was made of gold at the top,
then decreased in value of materials until it reached feet of clay.

Not
all composers suffered from financial difficulties, however. In a set titled
Well-Rewarded Medieval Composers, we hear the distinctive sound of Guillaume de
Machaut, the dominant poet-musician of 14th century France.

In
“Une vipere en cuer” (My lady harbors a snake in her heart) the poet protests
against a merciless woman with a scorpion sleeping in her mouth. Machaut’s
Italian contemporary Francesco Landini, too, enjoyed esteem during his
lifetime. His beautiful “Angelica bilta” tells of an angel-like beauty come to
earth…

The History
and Evolution of the Bassoon

The
ancient history of the bassoon is fairly murky, but ancestors of the bassoon and
its kid brother the oboe have been around since the middle ages. Double-reed
woodwind instruments called “shawms” were in use in Europe by at least the 12th
century, having probably arrived there from the Middle East, where similar
instruments had been developed a few centuries earlier.

By
the Renaissance, shawms were squawking all over Europe, and by the 16th century
they were making shawms that played in a variety of ranges, from sopranino to
double bass. One branch of the shawm family that became common, especially in
Brittany, was the bombarde. The “bombarde” label was mainly applied to
lower-ranged shawms, while higher-pitched shawms were usually just called
shawms.

As
Renaissance music grew more complex, musicians saw the need for a woodwind instrument
that could play really low and reasonably loud. The bombardes that were
available presented a conundrum: in order to play as low as composers wanted,
the instruments had to be ridiculously long, as much as three meters of tube.

The
solution instrument makers came up with in the second half of the 16th century
was to fold it up in the manner of brass instruments. The bore did a u-turn at
the bottom, effectively cutting the length of the instrument in half and making
it more manageable to play and transport. The bending also made the
instrument’s tone considerably mellower, so it was dubbed the “dulcian,” from
the Latin for “sweet sounding.” The dulcian is the direct forerunner to the
modern bassoon, the homo erectus to the bassoon’s homo sapiens. The dulcian
went by other names as well, including the curtal in England and the Fagott in
German-speaking places.

Dulcians
evolved into bassoons in the 17th century, when the modern four-joint
construction was developed, probably in France. Bassoons had a range that could
stand up against the lowest members of the string family, so composers who
wanted bass notes out of a woodwind instrument now had something to work with…

From 21 June to 18 September 2016,
the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza will be presenting Caravaggio and the Painters of
the North, an exhibition that focuses on Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
(Milan, 1571 – Porto Ercole, 1610) and his influence on the northern European
artists who were fascinated by his painting and disseminated his style. Curated
by Gert Jan van der Sman, professor at the University of Leiden and amember of
the Istituto Universitario Olandese di Storia dell’Arte in Florence, the
exhibition analyses the artist’s legacy and the wide variety of responses that
his work provoked. On display will be 53 paintings, twelve of them by
Caravaggio, loaned from private collections, museums and institutions such as
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence,
the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the
church of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome.

The exhibition will offer a survey
of Caravaggio’s career from his Roman period to the moving dark paintings of
his final years, shown alongside a selection of works by his most important
followers in Holland (Dirk van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick Ter
Brugghen), Flanders (Nicolas Régnier and Louis Finson) and France (Simon Vouet,
Claude Vignonand Valentin de Boulogne).

Between 1600 and 1630 more than two
thousand artists settled in Rome, of whom a third were foreigners who
transformed the city into an artistic melting-pot. To an equal or even greater
extent than the Italians, the northern European painters opted to follow Caravaggio’s
style for two principal reasons: the lesser importance of the classical element
in the northern pictorial tradition, and the suitability of Caravaggio’s style
for application outside the traditional context of a studio or drawing academy.

In the Low Countries and Germanic
regions working from life through the observation of visible elements taken
from the surrounding context was a firmly-rooted tradition. This established a
link with the manner of working characteristic of Caravaggio, whose Lombard
origins predisposed him to paint ad vivum, an approach that artists with a
classical training considered inadequate in that it represented an obstacle to
achieving perfection in art. In addition, most of the Dutch, Flemish and French
painters who settled in Rome had received a basic training in drawing and
painting in their native regions and were particularly interested in rapidly
capturing and assimilating new ideas. Caravaggio’s art thus appealed to them,
not only for the possibility of working from life but alsofor its emphasis on
the use of light, shadow and colour.

The foreign painters were able to
assimilate this style into their own without the restrictions implied by a
study program. Caravaggio and the Painters of the North transports visitors to
the era of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and the decades following his
death, a period particularly rich in masterpieces of painting and when his fame
was still at its height.

The exhibition opens with two
galleries devoted to works by Caravaggio executed during his time in Rome and
which reveal his multi-faceted career. The following galleries show works by
painters from north of the Alps who saw Caravaggio’s works at first hand. The
result of their impressions was manifested in the widest variety of ways, given
that each brought their own contribution while also seeking out new modes of
expression in both religious and secular art. The last two galleries are
devoted to the work of Caravaggio and his foreign followers in Naples and
southern Italy.

Caravaggio in Rome (1592 - 1606)

During his early years in the city
Caravaggio executed paintings that were sold by art dealers for modest sums.
These were genre scenes and still lifes with fruit and flowers, a speciality
that he brought with him from Lombardy.With Boy bitten by a Lizardof around
1593-95 (cat. 2) the artist astonished his contemporaries both for the mimetic
qualities of the vase of flowers and the youth’s melodramatic expression. His
depictions of characters typical of Roman street life, such as The Fortune
Teller of 1595-96 (cat. 3) attracted the attention of painters and collectors.
The artist’s first patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, offered him
lodgings in the Palazzo Madama where Caravaggio painted The Musicians of
1595-96 (cat. 4) and Saint Catherine of Alexandria(cat. 6), revealing the rapid
evolution of his technique from the brilliant and colourful palette of the
former to the pronounced chiaroscuro of the latter.

Caravaggio’s ability to bypass conventions
and approachtraditional themes with surprising originality is evident in David
with the Head of Goliathof around 1598-99.

The years 1596 and 1597 marked a
turning point in the artist’s career with the commission of two canvases – The
Calling of Saint Matthewand The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew- for the Contarelli
chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, in which Caravaggio combined
his preference for painting from life and the depiction of popular figure types
with a moving sense of drama. From the moment the work was displayed in public,
during the Jubilee of 1600, Caravaggio became the artist most in demand in
Rome, resulting in both public and private commissions for clients such as
Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII, for whom the artist painted The
Sacrifice of Isaac in 1603 and the banker Ottavio Costa, who commissioned Saint
John the Baptist in the Desertof 1602.

I’m
looking into the face of Piero della Francesca. Well, not literally; the great
Renaissance artist died in 1492 but he left several likenesses of himself in
the paintings he created for the churches and civic buildings of central Italy.

The
Piero who meets my gaze is looking down from the glorious cycle of frescos he
painted in the church of San Francesco in Arezzo, the city of palaces and
squares 80km southeast of Florence. He is square-jawed, with a long nose and
almond-shaped brown eyes. He wears a natty black hat, and his mouth is about to
break into a smile. I think I’m going to like him.

Arezzo
is my first stop on the Piero della Francesca Trail, a new initiative setting
out routes for visitors to see the artist’s works where they were made. You can
drive (like me) or take public transport across the collaborating regions —
Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Le Marche and Umbria — but walking and cycling are
encouraged too.

We
don’t know Piero’s exact date of birth but he was probably in his late thirties
when he arrived in Arezzo around 1452 to work on the frescos, now regarded as
his masterpiece. The paintings occupy the entire chapel behind the altar of the
church and depict the Legend of the True Cross. The story begins high up on the
walls and proceeds episode by episode, like scenes in a movie….

Medieval Music: A new
recording of Machaut’s ‘Nostre Dame’ setting of the Mass

The
Spanish Glossa label has released a new recording of the Messe de Nostre Dame
by the medieval French composer Guillaume de Machaut. This release seems to
have created a bit of a stir, since, fo a time, that this is being written, its
stock on Amazon.com was apparently exhausted…

The
recording presents the earliest known complete setting of the Ordinary of the
Mass attributable to a single composer. Indeed, “complete” goes beyond what
most listeners expect of a Mass setting, since Machaut went as far as to
include a setting of the “Ite missa est” (the Mass is over, to which, in loose
translation, the congregation gratefully replies “Thank God!”) exchange. The
performance on this new recording is by Graindelavoix, a ten-member all-male
choir led by Björn Schmelzer.

Schmelzer
is interested in preparing a historically-informed performance; and undertaking
that is far more difficult with the medieval repertoire than it is with, for
example, music from the Baroque period. There are far fewer historical
documents to consult that provide accounts of either making the music or
listening to it. Indeed, there are even questions regarding the document of the
music itself, since the proper interpretation of notational practices during
the fourteenth century continues to be debated by medieval scholars…

What is known: Vikings sailed to Greenland. They
homesteaded there for a few hundred years, and likely experienced multiple
famines. Many died. Some returned to European shores. And all of this happened
during a time in Europe known to geoscientists as the Medieval Warm Period. The
warmer, milder conditions that defined this time eventually ended too.

For many years, scientists have pondered if the
Vikings' diaspora to Greenland was made easier by the warmer temperatures of
the Medieval Warm Period. Climate data extracted from shells had indicated that
this warm period extended to Greenland, but new research suggests this may not
necessarily be so.

As EARTH Magazine explores, based on the new
data, scientists determined that glaciers grew from A.D. 926 to 1275,
suggesting a much cooler regional temperature, and that the Medieval Warm
Period was a distinctly European phenomenon.

…In
his newest novel, "The Vatican Princess," C. W. Gortner tells the
story of beautiful Lucrezia. Through her eyes, readers experience the darker
side of the Renaissance, getting an intimate look at one of history’s most
notorious families: the Borgias.

From
the moment of her conception to her dying breath, scandal and notoriety
followed Lucrezia Borgia more closely than her own shadow. This was only
natural because Lucrezia was the product of an extramarital affair between
Vannozza dei Cattanei and a cardinal of the Catholic Church, Rodrigo Borgia.
Had it not been for her father’s political ambitions, the scandalous nature of
her birth might have eventually faded from memory.

The
moment Rodrigo Borgia was crowned Pope Alexander VI, though, her fate was
sealed. As the daughter of the pope — the most powerful man in the world —
Lucrezia was “the most sought-after woman at [her father’s] court.” She became
a prized pawn in her father’s schemes, shifting from one advantageous marriage
to the next to secure political alliances.

Since
then, history has not been kind to Lucrezia Borgia. Long viewed as a willing
participant in her infamous family’s intrigues, historians have painted
Lucrezia as a “[personification of] evil through her long-established and
erroneously attributed role as a malignant seductress.”

More
recent research, however, “reveals that she was nothing like her legend.”
According to Gortner, Lucrezia was no different than “most women of her
status.” Like them, she was used to further her family’s ambitions, “with no
say in her fate.”

"The
Vatican Princess" provides readers with a unique take on the life of
Lucrezia Borgia. Where many writers have portrayed her as a villain, Gortner
suggests otherwise. Drawing from years of research, The Vatican Princess sheds
new light on a contentious subject, revealing that popular opinion of Lucrezia
Borgia might be less accurate than previously thought…